/' 


I 


-aliiornia 
gional 


Protest  of  the  Ukrainian  Republic  to  the 
United  States  Against  the  Delivery  of 
Eastern  Galicia  to  Polish  Domination. 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
19  19 


Protest  of  the  Ukrainian  Republic  to  the 
United  States  Against  the  Delivery  of 
Eastern  Galicia  to  Polish  Domination. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

FRIENDS  OF  UKRAINE 

345   MUNSEY    BUILDING 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
19  19 


UKRAINIAN  MISSION 
Washington,  D.  C. 

December  8,  1919. 

The  Honorable,  The  Secretary  of  State, 

Department  of  State,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Sir: 

I  have  the  honor,  as  the  representative  in  the  United 
States  of  the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic,  to  submit 
for  the  consideration  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  the  following  statement  of  facts  and  of  the  at- 
titude of  my  Government  and  its  people  concerning  the 
decision  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers,  recently 
announced  in  the  newspapers,  according  to  which  the 
Ukrainian  (Ruthenian)  or  Eastern  portion  of  the  re- 
cent Austrian  Province  of  Galicia  has  been  placed  for 
twenty-five  years  under  a  so-called  mandate  of  the 
Polish  Republic. 

At  this  point  I  desire  to  make  perfectly  clear  the 
territorial  sovereignty  (based  on  historical  and  ethni- 
cal grounds)  of  my  Government.  In  1917,  after  the 
collapse  of  the  Russian  Empire,  the  Government  of 
the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic  was  established  in 
that  portion  of  Southern  Russia  which  from  time  im- 
memorial has  been  inhabited  predominantly  by  the 
Ukrainian  People;  and  after  a  temporary  overthrow 
by  the  German  military  force  was  reestablished.  In 
the  latter  part  of  191 8,  the  Ukrainians  of  Eastern  Ga- 
licia   (also  predominantly  Ukrainian  and  anciently, 


prior  to  the  Polish  conquest,  integrally  attached  to 
the  Ukrainian  People  as  a  whole)  set  up  an  independ- 
ent republican  government  oi'  Western  Ukraine;  and 
in  January,  1919,  the  Ukrainian  National  Council,  in 
its  capacity  as  legislative  body  for  the  Western 
Ukrainian  (formerly  Eastern  Galician)  territory, 
proclaimed  the  union  of  all  the  Ukrainian  territories 
of  old  Austria-Hungary  with  those  of  former  Russia 
under  the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic. 

The  Government  of  the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Repub- 
lic consented  to  this  union,  and  under  that  name 
claims  independent  sovereignty  of  all  the  Ukrainian 
territories  herein  mentioned. 

Concerning  the  so-called  mandate  over  Galicia  re- 
cently granted  to  the  Polish  Republic,  I  am  under  the 
disadvantage  of  being  unable  to  obtain  authentic  offi- 
cial announcement  or  publication  of  its  details,  but 
must  rely  upon  the  apparent  authenticity  of  an  Asso- 
ciated Press  dispatch  dated  at  Paris,  November  21, 
1919,  in  which  it  is  stated  that  the  Supreme  Council  has 
agreed  to  grant  Poland  a  mandate  over  Eastern 
Galicia. 

The  dispatch  states : 

"By  the  terms  of  settlement,  Poland  is  to  be 
the  mandatory  for  twenty-five  years,  which  is  be- 
lieved to  be  long  enough  time  to  secure  immediate 
peace  in  the  troubled  territory. 

"At  the  end  of  twenty-five  years  the  league  of 
nations  will  have  the  right  to  decide  how  Galicia 's 
future  is  to  be  determined,  or  whether  a  plebiscite 
will  be  held.  But,  the  Poles  say,  in  twenty-five 
years  they  mil  have  had  time  to  reconcile  the  race 
differences  and  give  an  effective  administration, 
which  they  believe  will  win  over  the  Ruthenian 
population  and  reconcile  them  to  Polish  sover- 
eignty. 

"Under  the  agreement,  Galicia  is  to  have  a  cer- 


tain  amount  of  autonomy,  and  Eastern  Galicia 
will  in  a  way  be  federated  with  Poland.  Lemberg 
and  several  other  cities  of  considerable  size  in  the 
territory  will  be  affected  by  the  settlement." 

Inasmuch  as  this  problem  of  the  disposition  of  East- 
ern Galicia  involves  the  life,  liberty  and  happiness  of 
over  5,000,000  people  (more  than  65%  of  whom  are 
Ukrainians),  and  vitally  affects  the  present  and  future 
relations  between  the  Ukrainian  and  Polish  peoples  of 
Europe,  which  number  37,000,000  and  19,000,000  re- 
spectively, you  will,  I  am  confident,  appreciate  the 
supreme  importance  which  my  Government  and  its 
people  attach  to  a  righteous  solution  of  this  problem. 
If  this  solution  be  based  not  upon  the  fundamental 
principles  of  natural  right  and  justice,  but  upon  other 
considerations,  nothing  can  follow  but  a  continuation 
of  century-old  strife  and  the  injustice  and  misery  inci- 
dent thereto. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  the  Government  and  of  the  people 
I  have  the  honor  to  represent,  that  the  above-men- 
tioned decision  of  the  Supreme  Council  is  neither 
righteous  nor  reasonable;  that  it  will  not  lead  to 
reconciliation,  peace,  liberty  and  happiness,  nor  to  the 
foundation  and  perpetuation  of  a  strong  and  stable 
Poland;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  will  lead  to  con- 
tinued strife  and  warfare  and  to  the  continuation  of 
oppression  of  the  Ukrainian  people ;  and  that  it  creates 
the  same  conditions  that  indubitably  led  to  the  down- 
fall of  the  old  Polish  Empire  and  will  as  inevitably 
lead  to  the  downfall  of  the  new  Polish  Republic.  For 
all  these  reasons  my  Government  is  constrained  to 
protest  most  emphatically  against  this  delivery  of  the 
Ukrainian  people  to  their  ancient  and  modern  oppress- 
ors, the  Poles. 

Happily  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  persuade  you 
of  the  justice  of  the  principles  of  liberation,  self-deter- 


mination  and  self-government  of  peoples.  You  know, 
you  believe  in  and  you  are  governed  by  these  princi- 
ples. But  having  to  deal  with  an  immense  number  of 
international  problems  it  would  not  be  strange  for 
you  not  to  be  entirely  familiar  with  the  history  and 
present  status  of  the  Polish-Ukrainian  disputes.  And 
possibly  it  may  not  be  obvious  to  you  how  contradic- 
tory is  the  above-mentioned  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Council  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Governments  to 
the  program  of  a  democratic  peace  as  pronounced  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  by  yourself. 

The  very  fact  that  the  mandate  over  Eastern  Galicia 
given  to  Poland  is  limited  to  twenty-five  years  is  a 
recognition  that  the  Polish  title  is  doubtful;  but  if  we 
further  examine  the  question  under  consideration  in 
the  light  of  information  accessible  to  everyone  we  will 
find  that  Poland's  claims  are  entirely  without  founda- 
tion if  we  are  to  be  guided  by  the  American  ideas  of 
peace  adjustment. 

No  less  strongly,  however,  am  I  convinced  that  even 
the  arguments  of  the  balance  of  power  and  of  the 
necessity  of  subordinating  democratic  considerations 
to  the  programme  of  a  great  and  strong  Poland  do 
not  in  the  least  justify  the  placing  of  Ukrainian  East- 
ern Galicia  under  Polish  rule. 

To  prove  this  I  take  the  liberty  of  quoting  from 
American  and  other  authorities  and  of  submitting  this 
protest  to  your  impartial  study.  In  the  name  of  jus- 
tice and  humanity,  at  this  time  when  imperialistic 
passions  and  bolshevist  diseases  threaten  to  destroy 
the  fruits  of  the  great  victory  over  European  autocra- 
cies, I  urge  you  not  to  ignore  the  moral  issues  in- 
volved in  the  struggle  for  the  Liberty  and  Unity  of 
Ukraine. 

In  his  programme  of  peace,  announced  on  January 


8,   1918,   President  Wilson  laid  down,   among  other 
propositions,  the  two  following: 

"X.  The  peoples  of  Austria-Hungary,  whose 
place  among  the  nations  we  wish  to  see  safe- 
guarded and  assured,  should  be  accorded  the 
freest  opportunity  of  autonomous  development." 

"XIII.  An  independent  Polish  state  should  be 
erected  which  should  include  the  territories,  in- 
habited by  indisputably  Polish  populations,  which 
should  be  assured  a  free  and  secure  access  to  the 
sea,  and  whose  political  and  economic  indepen- 
dence and  territorial  integrity  should  be  guaran- 
teed by  international  covenant."  (Italics  sup- 
plied. ) 

And  in  his  Mt.  Vernon  speech  of  July  4,  1918,  the 
President  said : 

"These  are  the  ends  for  which  the  associated 
peoples  of  the  world  are  fighting  and  which  must 
be  conceded  before  there  can  be  peace. 

"II.  The  settlement  of  every  question,  whether 
of  territory,  of  sovereignty,  of  economic  arrange- 
ment, or  of  political  relationship,  upon  the  basis 
of  the  free  acceptance  of  that  settlement  by  the 
people  immediately  concerned,  and  not  upon  the 
basis  of  the  material  interest  or  advantage  of 
any  other  nation  or  people  which  may  desire  a 
different  settlement  for  the  sake  of  its  own  ex- 
terior influence  or  mastery."     (Italics  supplied.) 

The  Ukrainians  have  always  accepted  and  now  stand 
upon  these  ideas  as  part  of  their  own  demands  and 
expectations. 

And  even  the  present  leader  of  the  new  Polish  State, 
Mr.  Paderewski,  acknowledged  and  supported  the 
justness  of  the  same.  Following  the  mass  meeting  of 
the  oppressed  nationalities  of  central  Europe  held  in 
Carnegie  Hall,  September  15,  1918,  Mr.  Paderewski 


not  only  supported  but  signed  and  personally  pre- 
sented to  President  Wilson  a  resolution  of  the  meet- 
ing, which  was  in  part  as  follows: 

"Resolved,  That  since  the  majority  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Austria-Hungary,  to  wit:  Poles, 
Czecho-Slovaks,  Ukrainians,  Roumanians,  Jugo- 
slavs and  Italians,  have  been  unjustly  and  cruelly 
governed  by  a  ruling  minority  of  Germans  and 
Magyars,  we  demand  the  dissolution  of  the  present 
Empire  and  the  organization  of  its  freed  peoples 
according  to  their  own  will." 

(By  "The  present  Empire"  was  meant  Austria- 
Hungary.  ) 

I  beg  to  invite  your  attention  to  what  is  indisputable, 
namely,  that  racially,  linguistically,  geographically, 
economically,  in  religious  discipline,  ceremony  and 
government,  and  so  far  as  political  and  national  con- 
sciousness is  concerned,  Eastern  Galicia  is  not  Polish, 
but  is  overwhelmingly  Ukrainian.  It  is  an  integral 
part  of  Ukraine  proper  and  the  bulk  of  the  Eastern 
Galician  population  has  always  been  bitterly  opposed 
to  union  with  Poland  and  has  always  striven  for  in- 
corporation with  the  main  body  of  Ukraine,  from  which 
it  had  been  separated  by  force  of  arms. 

Western  Galicia  is  Polish,  and  as  clearly  belongs  to 
Poland  as  Eastern  Galicia  belongs  to  Ukrainia.  West- 
ern and  Eastern  Galicia  were  never  united  (even  when 
Eastern  Galicia  was  under  Polish  domination  before 
the  final  partition  of  Poland)  until  they  were  united, 
by  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire,  into  one  province 
under  the  newT  name  of  Galicia ;  and  thenceforward  the 
Austrian  Government  permitted  the  Polish  land-hold- 
ing nobility  to  govern,  to  exploit  and  to  oppress  the 
Ukrainians  of  the  eastern  portion  of  the  province  in 
exchange  for  the  support  of  the  Poles  in  the  Austrian 
parliament. 

6 


According  to  the  International  Encyclopedia,  the 
entire  Austrian  province  of  Galicia  (western  and  east- 
ern) contained,  in  1910,  58.55  per  cent  of  Poles  and 
40.20  per  cent  of  Ruthenians,  which  is  the  local  name 
for  Greek-Catholic  Ukrainians. 

According  to  the  Encyclopedia  Brittanica,  the  former 
predominate  in  the  West  and  in  the  big  towns,  and  the 
latter  in  the  East. 

According  to  official  statistics  of  the  Austrian  pro- 
vincial government  of  Galicia,  prepared  and  published 
by  leaders  of  Polish  political  parties,  there  were,  in 
1900,  in  Eastern  Galicia,  65.10  per  cent  Ruthenians, 
21.2  Poles,  and  12  per  cent  Jews. 

The  Ukrainian  claim  embraces  only  48  Eastern  dis- 
tricts, where  their  population  is  greatly  preponderant. 
Official  statistics  in  1900  show  that  the  percentage  of 
Ukrainians  in  these  48  districts  stood  as  follows : 

In  10  districts,  75%  to  90% 

In  12  districts,  61%  to  75% 

In  16  districts,  60%  to  66% 

In  8  districts,  50%  to  60% 

In  2  districts,  41%  to  50% 

The  real  percentage  of  the  Ukrainian  population  is, 
however,  much  higher,  for  it  is  a  proven  and  well- 
known  fact  that  the  Polish-Austrian  authorities  in  Lviv 
purposely  interfered  with  the  due  process  of  census  in 
order  to  obtain  a  Polish  majority  in  the  country. 

According  to  Arnold  J.  Toynbee :  ' '  The  Viennese 
government  purchased  the  support  of  the  Polish  group 
in  the  Parliament,  abandoning  the  Ruthenians  polit- 
ically to  Polish  exploitation." 

(The  New  Europe,  by  Arnold  J.  Toynbee,  London, 
1916,  pp.  81-84.) 

According  to  the  Encyclopedia  Brittanica:    "The 


Euthenians  arc  under  an  alien  yoke,  both  politically 
and  economically. ' ' 

See  also  "The  New  Map  of  Europe,"  by  Herbert 
Adams  Gibbons,  the  well-known  American  student  of 
eastern  European  affairs,  Chapter  on  Galicia;  J.  A. 
Cole's  "The  Ground  Work  of  East  Central  Europe"; 
and  an  article  in  "Geographical  Teacher"  (Vol.  8, 1915- 
16,  p.  356),  by  A.  Bruce  Boswell,  Research  Fellow  in 
Western  Slav  History,  University  of  Liverpool. 

As  a  native  of  Galicia,  I  know  that  there  is  not  a 
single  Ruthenian  group,  party  or  publication,  from  the 
Conservative  Catholics  to  the  Social  Democrats,  which 
advocates  or  would  agree  to  a  union  of  Eastern  Galicia 
with  Poland  as  against  a  union  with  Ukraine  and  in 
my  whole  life  I  do  not  remember  a  single  instance — so 
sharp  is  the  cleavage  between  those  two  nationalities — 
where  a  Ruthenian,  not  to  say  publicly  but  even  pri- 
vately, would  express  such  an  opinion. 

The  Polish  government  has  been  and  is  aware  of 
this  sentiment.  Therefore,  though  the  right  of  plebis- 
cite has  been  finally  granted  by  the  Poles  to  the  Ger- 
mans on  the  Polish-German  frontiers,  repeated  offers 
on  the  part  of  Ukrainians  to  hold  a  plebiscite  under 
Allied  supervision  in  Eastern  Galicia  have  been  firmly 
rejected.  Both  before  and  after  the  formal  proclama- 
tion in  January,  1919,  by  the  duly  elected  representa- 
tives of  Eastern  Galicia  (Western  Ukraine)  of  its 
union  with  the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic,  the  Poles 
were  not  willing  to  agree  to  settle  this  issue  by  a  gen- 
eral vote  of  the  people  concerned.  This  opposition  it- 
self indicates  its  reason.  The  Poles  feared  a  popular 
vote.  They  preferred  bullets  to  ballots.  They  con- 
quered Eastern  Galicia  by  a  superior  army  of  invasion 
and  they  hold  the  occupied  territory  in  subjection  only 
by  military  force. 

8 


It  is  apparent  that  some  principle  of  international 
conduct  which  was  not  the  American  one  was  in  oper- 
ation when  the  Supreme  Council  decided  upon  a  Polish 
mandate  in  Ukrainian  Galicia.  It  might  be  the  prin- 
ciple of  historic  possession  or  the  belief  in  the  political 
expediency  of  such  a  settlement.  But  neither  can  bear 
the  test  of  critical  examination. 

It  is  true  that  from  the  end  of  the  Fourteenth  Cen- 
tury to  1772,  Eastern  Galicia  (or,  as  it- was  known  at 
that  time,  Little  Russia  or  Ruthenia),  was  ruled  by 
Poland.  It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  it  fell 
under  the  domination  of  the  Polish  Kings  only  after 
the  bitterest  struggles,  and  that  its  Ukrainian  popula- 
tion has  strongly  resisted,  for  nearly  six  centuries,  up 
to  the  present  time,  all  the  attacks  and  all  the  oppres- 
sions of  the  Polish  feudal  regime,  maintaining  its  lan- 
guage, its  religion  and  its  nationality.  While  the  peas- 
ants in  Poland  bore  the  burden  of  servitude  without 
protest  the  Ukrainian  population  of  Galicia  strongly 
contested  the  right  of  the  free-holders  and  repeatedly 
broke  into  open  revolt.  The  clergy,  the  burgeoisie  and 
the  gentry,  all  were  combatting  the  rule  of  the  Polish 
imported  aristocracy,  which  never  succeeded  in  con- 
ciliating the  native  population.  The  Ukrainians  of 
Galicia,  because  of  their  hatred  of  Polish  dominion,  be- 
came a  substantial  factor  in  the  great  uprising  which 
was  started  by  the  Eastern  or  Cossack  Ukraine  against 
the  Polish  State  in  1648,  and  which,  according  to  most 
Polish  historians,  was  the  main  cause  of  Poland's 
weakening  and  partition.  (See  Bruckner,  Bobrzynski, 
Zakrzewski.) 

The  Ukrainian-Polish  antagonism  did  not  abate  but, 
on  the  contrary,  increased  after  the  Polish  partition, 
when  in  1772  the  territory  presently  known  as  Eastern 
Galicia,  together  with  the  Duchy  of  Cracow,  Zator  and 

9 


Oswiecim,  the  present  Western  Galicia,  became  an  Aus- 
trian province.  Then  for  the  first  time  in  history  those 
two  countries  were  united  into  one  administrative  unit 
under  the  new  name  Galicia.  This  was  done  by  the 
Hapsburgs  solely  for  their  selfish  dynastic  aims.  It 
was  the  policy  of  their  arbitrary  government  so  to  or- 
ganize the  provinces  of  their  empire  as  to  have  in  each 
province  at  least  two  nationalities,  to  be  played  against 
each  other  and  prevent  either  from  achieving  self-gov- 
ernment. The  Ukrainians  on  every  occasion  demanded 
that  Galicia,  the  largest  province  of  Europe,  number- 
ing 8,000,000  people,  be  again  divided  into  its  natural 
components,  the  Western  Polish,  and  the  Eastern  Uk- 
rainian. 

The  Polish  leaders  opposed  and  succeeded  in  defeat- 
ing this  plan  through  a  secret  agreement  with  the  late 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  I,  made  in  the  seventies  of 
the  last  century,  by  which  they  pledged  permanent  sup- 
port to  the  dynasty  in  its  policies  of  suppression  of  the 
other  nationalities  of  Austria-Hungary  and  received 
full  control  of  the  provincial  government  of  Galicia. 
This  is  shown  incidentally  by  the  demand  of  the  Allied 
Powers  for  the  extradition  of  the  present  Polish  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  Affairs,  Mr.  Bilinski,  formerly  Aus- 
tro-Hungarian  Minister  of  Finance  and  Governor  of 
the  annexed  province  of  Bosnia,  who  is  charged  with 
responsibility  for  the  great  war.  This  agreement  was 
characterized  in  the  Czecho-Slovak  press  as  the  great 
treason  to  the  Slav  cause  in  Austria.  Had  it  not  been 
for  the  complete  and  continued  support  which  the  Pol- 
ish parliamentary  group  was  giving  to  every  admin- 
istration in  Vienna  there  would  have  been  a  compact 
and  great  majority  of  Slavic  deputies  (Czech,  Polish, 
Euthenian,  Slovene  and  Serbo-Croat)  as  against  the 
German  dominant  minority. 


10 


The  largest  part  of  the  progress  of  civilization  in 
Ukrainian  Galicia  was  achieved  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  Polish-Austrian  administration.  The  greatest  ef- 
fort of  the  Polish  provincial  government  was  extended 
in  the  interest  of  a  forcible  Polonization  of  the  Ukrain- 
ians. During  the  Polish-Austrian  regime  the  princi- 
ples of  political  democracy,  of  popular  education  and 
of  co-operative  movement  were  ruthlessly  and  un- 
scrupulously down-trodden.  These  principles  grew 
hand  in  hand  with  the  Ukrainian  nationalist  movement 
with  which  they  were  identical.  The  Ukrainian  move- 
ment being  forbidden  in  the  former  Russian  Empire, 
Eastern  Galicia,  with  its  political  and  intellectual  capi- 
tal Leopol  (Lviv  in  Ukrainian,  Lemberg  in  German) 
became  the  center  of  the  whole  Ukrainian  national 
movement,  which  developed  with  the  intellectual  and 
material  forces  of  the  whole  of  Ukraine,  and  attained 
greater  strength  under  the  so-called  constitutional  con- 
ditions existing  in  Austria  after  the  year  1867. 

During  this  unremitting  struggle  against  Polish  dom- 
ination, against  class  legislation,  electoral  frauds,  cor- 
rupt courts,  denial  of  suffrage,  administrative  abuses 
and  even  religious  intolerance,  the  Ukrainian  people 
of  Eastern  Galicia  builded,  step  by  step,  the  solid  foun- 
dation of  its  economic,  intellectual  and  moral  progress. 

Having  established  an  entire  system  of  co-operative 
associations,  rural  banks,  educational  societies,  and 
private  schools  (higher  education  in  public  schools  be- 
ing denied  to  them  in  many  localities),  and  having  or- 
ganized an  academy  of  science  in  Lemberg  and  a  strong 
democratic  press,  the  Ukrainians  have  demonstrated 
the  ability  to  govern  themselves.  Polish  students  of 
Galicia  have  testified  that  the  level  of  civic  and  cul- 
tural development  of  the  Galician  Ukrainian  farmer 
is  higher  than  that  of  the  Polish  farmer  of  Western 
Galicia.     ("Galicia,"  by  F.  Bujak,  Cracow,  1908.) 

11 


When  the  Allied  Powers,  deciding  the  fate  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  recognized  the  right  of  the  several  national- 
ities forming  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  to  self-de- 
termination, the  Ukrainian  Deputies  to  the  provincial 
legislature  and  to  the  Viennese  Parliament,  elected  by 
general  suffrage,  terminated  Austrian  power  in  East- 
ern Galicia  on  November  1,  1918,  at  the  same  time  pro- 
claiming the  Western  Ukrainian  Republic  in  all  the 
Ukrainian  lands  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy  (Eastern 
Galicia,  Ukrainian  part  of  Bukovina  and  Ukrainian 
part  of  Northern  Hungary).  Later,  by  unanimous 
vote,  they  united,  on  January  3,  1919,  the  Western 
Ukrainian  Republic  with  the  Ukrainian  Peoples  Re- 
public, which  had  emerged  from  the  ruins  of  old  Russia. 

Against  the  exercise  of  this  right  of  self-determina- 
tion has  arisen  Poland,  attempting  to  conquer  Eastern 
Galicia  by  force  of  arms.  During  the  course  of  the 
resulting  Polish-Ukrainian  war  the  Supreme  Council 
of  the  Peace  Conference  by  its  decision  of  March  19, 
1919,  ordered  the  two  parties  to  make  a  truce  and 
promised  to  "hear  the  territorial  claims  of  both  sides 
with  a  view  to  transforming  the  laying  down  of  arms 
into  an  armistice." 

The  Armistice  Commission,  instituted  by  the  Su- 
preme Council  under  the  Presidency  of  General  Botha, 
proposed  an  armistice  to  the  Ukrainians  and  the  Poles 
with  a  provisional  line  of  demarkation,  which  the 
Ukrainians  accepted  but  the  Poles  refused. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  since  January,  1918,  the 
Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic  has  been  in  a  life  and 
death  struggle  with  the  Bolsheviki.  All  available 
Ukrainian  forces  have  been  dispatched  against  the  in- 
vaders in  an  effort  to  prevent  their  overrunning  the 
country. 

Suddenly,  in  the  middle  of  May,  1919,  General  Haller, 

12 


with  a  Polish  army  organized  in  America,  of  un-Amer- 
icanized  Polish  immigrants,  began  an  offensive  against 
the  Ukrainians,  attacking  them  from  the  rear.  In  this 
manner  Poland  took  advantage  of  the  critical  condi- 
tion of  the  Ukraine,  a  newly  organized  state,  which  not 
only  had  to  defend  herself  on  two  different  fronts  but 
also,  as  a  result  of  the  blockade,  was  almost  devoid  of 
munitions  and  supplies  and  was  ravaged  by  epidemics 
of  typhus. 

Prior  to  the  recent  Polish  conquest  of  Eastern  Gali- 
cia  the  Associated  Press  of  America  repeatedly  re- 
ported that  there  were  no  Bolshevists  in  Eastern  Gali- 
cia ;  that  there  was  better  order  there  than  in  Poland, 
and  that  the  Jewish  population  was  living  in  peace  and 
harmony  with  the  rest  of  the  people ;  while  at  the  same 
time  there  were  pogroms  in  Central  Poland  and  in  the 
Western  or  Polish  part  of  Galicia. 

The  Polish  occupation  of  Ukrainian  Eastern  Galicia 
has  the  following  facts  to  its  record. 

The  Ukrainian  language  has  been  barred  from  use 
in  public  life  and  the  Ukrainian  press  has  been  entirely 
suppressed. 

The  Ukrainian  schools,  public  as  well  as  private,  and 
other  educational  institutions,  have  been  closed,  while 
the  Ukrainian  chairs  at  the  Ukrainian-Polish  Univer- 
sity of  Lemberg  have  been  abolished. 

Ukrainian  students  have  been  excluded  from  the  Uni- 
versity in  Lemberg  by  the  decree  requiring  from  every 
student  a  record  of  service  in  the  Polish  army.  When 
Ukrainian  professors  attempted  to  organize  private 
courses  of  higher  education  the  Polish  government  re- 
fused permission. 

The  teachers  of  common  schools  in  Eastern  Galicia 
who  refused  to  pledge  allegiance  to  the  Polish  State 
were  sent  to  internment  camps  in  Poland. 

13 


Nearly  all  Ukrainian  leaders  have  been  arrested  and 
herded  into  camps,  most  filthy  and  unsanitary  and  in- 
fected by  typhus,  dysentery  and  other  diseases. 

The  life  of  those  in  the  internment  camps  was  made 
so  miserable  by  denial  of  food,  clothes  and  medical  at- 
tention that  it  looked  as  if  the  Polish  government  de- 
sired to  get  rid  of  them.  Those  conditions  became  the 
subject  of  severe  criticism  in  the  Polish  Diet  of  War- 
saw and  of  intervention  on  the  part  of  Allied  Missions 
in  Poland. 

The  Polish  Diet  has  passed  a  law  by  virtue  of  which 
the  Polish  agricultural  population  in  Poland  will  be 
able,  with  the  help  of  the  State,  to  acquire  for  reason- 
able compensation  the  lands  heretofore  held  in  great 
estates,  yet  the  very  same  law  attempts  to  preserve 
the  great  Polish  landed  estates  in  Eastern  Galicia  lest 
the  Ukrainian  farmers,  by  becoming  the  owners  of 
these  lands,  may  become  economically  independent. 

Courts-martial  of  Ukrainian  civilians  on  the  bare 
suspicion  of  opposition  to  the  Polish  rule,  burning 
down  of  Ukrainian  churches  and  shooting  of  priests, 
and  the  most  inhuman  treatment  of  Ukrainian  prison- 
ers of  war  (684  prisoners  of  war  died  during  a  period 
of  30  days  in  a  single  camp  out  of  a  total  of  six  or 
eight  thousand) ;  all  these  are  facts  which  can  not  be 
denied. 

The  following  is  the  latest  evidence  of  the  last  men- 
tioned horrors : 

"International  Red  Cross  Committee  on  Condi- 
tions in  Polish  Prison  Camps, 

Geneva,  November  2nd, 
(Swiss  Telegraph  Agency.) 
"The    International   Red    Cross    Committee    an- 
announces: 
"The  worst  news  reaches  us  on  the  conditions 
in  some  Polish  war  prison  camps.     A  commission 

14 


composed  of  two  delegates  of  the  International 
Red  Cross  Committee  accompanied  by  a  Major  of 
the  Sanitary  Corps  of  the  French  Military  Mission 
has  visited  four  war  prison  camps  at  Brest  Lit- 
ovsk,  which  last  March  contained  10,000  men,  prin- 
cipally Ukrainians.  Between  the  10th  and  11th 
day  of  October  there  were  hardly  4,000  men  in 
these  camps.  From  the  1st  to  17th  of  October 
1,124  prisoners  died.  In  the  first  part  of  August 
about  180  prisoners  were  dying  daily.  These 
prison  camps  were  veritable  deathbeds.  The 
losses  have  been  caused  mainly  by  dysentery,  ty- 
phus and  insufficient  food.  Those  who  survived 
are  in  rags,  insufficiently  nourished  and  sleep  on 
wooden  floors  without  any  straw  or  covering. ' ' 

This  shameless  policy  has  been  somewhat  modified 
by  the  Polish  administration  only  since  the  foreign 
press  has  taken  up  the  subject  and  when  the  moment 
approached  for  final  decision  by  the  Peace  Conference 
of  the  future  of  Eastern  Galicia.  But  to  those  who 
know  the  history  of  the  Polish-Ukrainian  relations  in 
the  past  centuries  the  unscrupulous  suppression  of 
Ukrainian  nationality  during  the  present  occupation  is 
only  one  chapter  in  the  history  of  Polish  attempts  to 
subjugate  Ukraine,  showing  what  is  to  be  expected 
from  the  Polish  dominion  over  Ukrainian  territory 
should  Eastern  Galicia  be  placed  under  the  Polish  rule 
not  provisionally  only  as  now,  but  for  five,  ten  or 
twenty-five  years,  as  reported. 

There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  the  Polish  adminis- 
tration in  Galicia  will  change  its  long  established  policy 
of  extermination  with  regard  to  its  Ukrainian  subjects. 
Such  change  of  heart  has  never  yet  happened  in  the 
history  of  European  peoples.  Neither  will  the  Ukrain- 
ians change  or  ever  cease  their  struggle  for  the  liberty 
of  their  homes  and  the  honor  of  their  country. 

This  incessant  antagonism  and  strife  between  the 

15 


Polish  aud  Ukrainian  population  of  the  Polish  re- 
public will  not  prove  a  source  of  strength  but  of  dis- 
union and  weakness  of  the  state.  In  case  of  war,  Po- 
land will  prove  as  weak  an  ally  to  its  friends  as  Aus- 
tria was  to  Germany.  Not  only  the  Ukrainians  of 
Galicia  but  those  of  the  whole  Ukraine  will  resent  the 
Polish  domination  in  Eastern  Galicia,  and  will  always 
strive  to  wrest  it  from  Poland. 

The  folly  of  attempting  to  build  up  a  nation  from  the 
top,  by  super-imposing  a  government  on  unwilling  peo- 
ples, has  been  demonstrated  from  the  dawn  of  history. 
It  is  exemplified  in  the  histories  of  the  Polish,  the  Rus- 
sian and  the  Austro-Hungarian  empires. 

The  peaceful  cohabitation  of  the  Ukrainians  and  the 
Poles  and  the  security  of  the  peace  of  Eastern  Europe 
demand  that  the  three  and  a  half  million  Ukrainians  of 
Eastern  Galicia  shall  not  be  torn  away  from  their 
parental  stock — the  Ukrainian  people. 

Any  solution  of  the  Eastern  Galician  problem  made 
in  violation  of  this  fundamental  demand  can  not  and 
will  not  lead  to  the  accord  of  the  two  nationalities,  nor 
secure  and  perpetuate  the  peace  of  eastern  Europe, 
and  will  inevitably  destroy  all  political  combinations 
based  on  such  a  solution. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Respectfully  yours, 

Julian  Batchinsky, 
Diplomatic  'Representative  of  the 
Ukrainian  Peoples  Republic. 


16 


I^^BHH^HBBB 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


MAY  0 1  2006 


Series  9482 


3  1205  00457  2671 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000  295  038 


Universi 

South 

Libr 


